Stars Of Today For Stars Of Yesterday

In today's hobby, there is a lot of hustle and bustle when it comes to collecting the next big thing.

Everyone wants that next big prospect money return. Some buy low, sell high. Others will pour their life savings into one prospect they feel could be the next Mike Trout. Even though that sometimes works out, probably only 10-20% of the time (I am looking at you Baker Mayfield and Shohei Ohtani collectors in 2018 and 2019), it's a huge risk to take.

One I am not willing to.

For me, collecting is fun and nostalgic. I don't rip and flip. I don't buy all in on one player, unless it's a guy on my team but that's not prospecting. I don't buy just to sell. I collect plain and simple.

So if I happen to land one of those big name prospects, I usually trade it off for what I consider an upgrade.

When looking for an upgrade, I look for players who are in the Hall Of Fame and ones that I have had a history somewhat with.

Being a huge fan of the 90's, I saw a lot of Hall Of Fame players play in that era spread across all sports, so those are the guys I am typically drawn to getting autographed cards of.

I have already picked up autos of guys such as Ken Griffey Jr, Kobe Bryant, Steve Young, Dan Marino, and many others and have been weaning my search down as I go. My recent prospect trade off took two more off from my list of needs.

 

Tony was atop my baseball list needs that includes guys like Mariano Rivera still to get.  Gwynn played 20 seasons all for the SD Padres. He won 8 batting titles and is one of the most consistent. hitters in MLB history He also was an 15 time All Star, seven time Silver Slugger award winner and five gold gloves as well. Solid player who has a place in my collection. When I saw also this was a 90's autograph I was acquiring it made it an even more beautiful sight.

 

The Big Hurt stars in commericals now, but when he was on the baseball field he put a hurt ont all baseballs. He was an MVP, Five time All Star, AL Comeback Player Of The Year and won a World Series. Not quite the list of accomplishments as Gwynn, but one heck of a player no matter. If only injuries hadn't take a toll on him throughout his career we may be talking more about him.

Usually I don't like unlicensed baseball cards like this, but I have been needing an autograph of Thomas so this fits the bill.

I still have many more needs across multiple sports to acquire so when I hit that next big prospect or if I already have, I will turn that into players who are more established careers. That's just the way I roll.

You're A Mean One....

You're a mean one...Mr. Grinch.

A few years ago I saw a blog, I believe it was Pack Wars blog, post How The Grinch Stole Christmas autograph cards and ever since I have wanted them.

The set was mainly built of artist autographs but did include three non artist autographs with two actor autographs from the movie with the third one being from Director Ron Howard.

The two actor autographs have two different ink variations to find. My recent trade with @Jake1725 landed me two of the three autographs in the set I wanted.

Jeffrey Tambor who has played many roles in his acting career. He was on Arrested Development, he was King Neptune's voice in The Spongebob Squarepants movie, The Hangover saga, was King Poppy in Trolls, among many other big and small roles. In The Grinch, he was Mayor Augustus Maywho who was always a bully to the Grinch. Guess he learned his lesson a few times in the movie.

The other autograph was of Christine Baranski who herself has been in many things over the years. I currently know her as Dr. Beverly Hofstadter from Big Bang Theory as Leonard's mom.She also played on Cybill, The Good Wife, Cruel Intentions, but also played The Grinch's love interest in the movie as Martha May Whovier.

My goal at some point now is to try and land that Ron Howard to the set. But, that one isn't cheap like these were. Most Howard's are listed at least for BIN of $90. That's obviously way out of my league. I may need some help from fellow trading friends to acquire the beast.

As for The Grinch movie itself, I hated it when it first came out but as years passed it grew on me especially the humor of Jim Carrey playing the role of The Grinch. Some of those lines are classics and I will use occasionally on friends and family.

But overall, I still prefer Boris Karloff voicing the cartoon version more. Just old fashioned like that.

Thanks again Jake for the trade and for helping me acquire these.

Happy Christmas Eve everyone! Don't let The Grinch steal your stuff for Christmas morning.

REVIEW:2017 Star Wars Journey To Star Wars The Last Jedi

I don't mention this on here too often, but I am a big Star Wars fan. Well, at least of the original three films or as they now call them, parts 4,5 and 6.  I did watch parts 1,2, and 3 and wasn't much of a fan of those but I have heard the newest releases are pretty solid. I just haven't had the opportunity to sit down and watch them.

What I have done however, is open up the cards still. Today marks my first hobby box break as most of my Star Wars breaks have been retail, so it should be fun to see how I do.

Let's take a look:

Each box of 2017 Star Wars Journey To Star Wars The Last Jedi you will find 24 packs of 8 cards each. You should also find one Insert or Parallel Per Pack! Hobby boxes come with

2 hits per and at least one guaranteed autograph.  Boxes run just under $80.

The second hit could be a variety of this:

• Sketch Cards
• Plastic Emblem Cards
• 1-of-1 Printing Plates

The base cards are printed with the 1977 Blue Starfield design on 24pt stock. It's not high gloss cards and has that vintage feel to them. There are 110 cards in the base set that takes you on a journey across the Star Wars saga even with a slight sneak peek at Star Wars: The Last Jedi. 

The base set also has cards from the cartoon series as well.

Some backs of cards turn into a really cool puzzle. Here is what I built of the two.

As with all products today, there are parallels to chase as well.

Green Starfield falls 1 per pack

Black Starfield falls 1:2 packs. This one looks the sharpest in my opinion.

Silver Starfield falls 1:4 packs

White Starfield are numbered to 199

And the toughest one I pulled was Orange Starfield that's numbered to 50

Other parallels not found in my box include, 

• - Gold Starfield #'d to 25
• - Imperial Red #d 1 of 1
• - Printing Plates #d 1 of 1

 There are 5 Insert Sets to Collect and the first cards in the new Rey Continuity Program which will carry on in future Topps Star Wars releases.

Darkness Rises which I got the whole set of

Illustrated Cards

Rey Continuity Program which look really cool

Character Cards have one of my favorite designs in the product.

Blueprints.

Character Stickers which look awesome! This would be a fun set to collect!

Now onto the hits.

My first find was this pretty slick manu-patch. Sorry, it's not space worn.

Autographs from over 30 actors and characters with special focus. They look really nice despite the stickers.

Autograph parallels include:

• Purple #'d to 99
• Orange #'d to 25
• Gold #'d to 10
• Imperial Red #d to 1 of 1
• Autographed Printing Plates #d to 1 of 1

You can also find rare Dual and Triple Autographs and a really cool and really rare 6-Person Autographs.

Other hits that weren't pulled in my box include,   

Sketch Cards and Plastic Emblem Cards that have parallels Orange #'d to 99,  Gold #'d to 25

and Imperial Red #d 1 of 1. 

OVERALL, not a bad break. I would definitely say this is a product for set collectors with so many base cards in a break, but it would be a fun-easy one to build. I think building the parallels would be fun. I will also say it's a risk product as well with the cost vs what you may pull. But, with only 30 on the autograph checklist, that narrows it down some. You have a 1:30 chance of landing a top signer.

Please make sure to take a minute out to thank Topps for providing this box for me to review and to be able to add cards to the MLB Pick Em promotion.  Follow Topps on all social media sites and visit their SITE, as well.

Not A Bad Vacation Pull

Believe it or not, I actually take a vacation. That vacation takes a lot of saving up for and it isn't usually more than a few days. I bet none of you even knew I was on vacay this week from Sunday to Tuesday. I go to relax at a beach and visit an LCS I visit every year. It's the only one I ever get to so I try to at least come home with something.

With the budget very tight this year, I couldn't bring home a hobby box and extra packs as usual. This year was actually one of my lesser visits when it comes to purchases. I couldn't however come home empty handed.

So for $20, I think I scored pretty well. You may wonder how I got this so cheap, well, I have spent much in the past at this particular shop and have become pretty good friends with the owners so they always give me a good deal.

This binder, you can never have enough binders, $1. Can't go wrong.

And then I busted 6 packs of 2017 Donruss baseball. I try to open some every year. I think it's one of the more underrated products out there all because people don't like the fact it doesn't have any logos. Well, I will tell you what, you are missing out. The overall product is very solid, affordable and can pack a big punch as you will see. I got these 6 packs for $19.

I surprisingly didn't hit one rookie card. Not sure what the odds are on those. I was obviously hoping to find a Judge. But I did pull a Brandon Belt parallel /49 and a Moncada The Rookies.

To my surprise, boxes only have 3 hits and this one looked to had been opened for a bit. So finding two jersey cards in my first three packs was a surprise. Too bad the players weren't better. Cool designed however.

Oh yeah, I did mention there was a third hit didn't I....well...that one was in there too. A very nice looking Significant Signatures purple 3/10 Ozzie Smith. Boo Yeah! I always pull at least something nice from this shop.

 

I do find the team choice for Ozzie a bit odd for Panini going with San Diego, cause how many of us think of the Wizard as a Padre? But Ozzie's sig is so nice I will ignore that fact.

Well, that's my showcase. I hope when I go next year I will have a tad bit more money to spend at the shop but feel for what I did spend, I did pretty well.

2017 Contenders Draft Football Autograph Winners!

I recently busted a box of 2017 Contenders Draft football and promised to give some of the autos away, specifically these:

 

Well, today's the day. Technically yesterday was but I am a day late.

I was trying to decide how to pick a winner and decided my usual random of 7 times was the way to go. So let's see who wins the cards above.

There were 24 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

1. Justin P
2. B money
3. Kyle Herring
4. Dion's IP Autos only
5. James Baurle
6. John Sharp
7. Justin S
8. Unknown
9. the bowl cut kid
10. Jim Pieper
11. Trevor P
12. hudsonfan15
13. Steve Wright
14. Nick Frank
15. GRADY MALACHOWSKI
16. mrs.mommyy
17. God's humble servant
18. ketchupman36
19. william parker
20. @funtocollect
21. Luke Enno
22. Tracy LeVeaux
23. Miami Vice
24. @JGfan24ever

IP: 72.169.80.90
Timestamp: 2017-05-18 10:52:39 UTC
You have randomized this list 7 times.

Congrats to Justin P on the win! Please email me me your info within 48 hours at sportcardcollectors@hotmail.com to claim. If not, cards will be re-given away in a future contest. Thanks to all that entered.

Stay tuned for more contests!

Mail Day Saturday: Very Psyched, Another One Down!

Thanks to my buddy over at 90's Niche Football Card Blog I have finally knocked another one off of my needs for my Psych autograph set from seasons 5-8 and he also helps bring back the exciting return of Mail Day Saturday.

Nestor Carbonell guest starred as Declan Rand who was a criminal profiler.

 

Nestor also played in Lost and was the Mayor in The Dark Knight movie series. He is currently on Bates Motel TV series.

I should also note that this card is a variation with the symbol he drew on it. Added bonus!

With this addition and others on the way, I currently sit only 2 away from completing this set with a few more updates to post on here. That's quite a milestone for me if I can finish this up. However, two of the final ones won't be too cheap ($35-$50 range) to complete it.

The Giants Shepard

So we end my Giants end of my trade recap with 90's Niche Football Card blog today as I will finish up the last two parts of trade the next couple days.

Today, we focus on Giants rookie stud WR, Sterling Shepard.

Shepard has proven he was worthy of his early picking in the draft as he has had some great games this year. He developed pretty quickly into the Giants number 2 WR on the team moving past veteran Victor Cruz. He has moved up so much that it's actually tough to pickup any of his rookie autographs without paying first round money. Luckily this trade happened.

Up first, two new additions.

A really nice auto card here, very shiny and my first autograph of him in a Giants uniform.

And just like with Perkins, a nice Unparalleled pickup. My first auto/jersey of him.

 

These were probably my most impressive pickups of the trade even though all of the trade was really nice. I still have more to show the next two days of things on my want list I finally can cross off.

Stay tuned!

Showing Off The Dre's

I figured it was time to show off where my Andre Williams collection currently stands. I know mine will not even touch some collections of him, but I am pretty proud of what I have so far. I think this collection would be a little bigger if I could surpass my "hobby ADHD" that doesn't allow me to put focus onto one collection anymore lol.

I used to have more focus in the 90's with sticking to just one thing such as I did with my Griffey collecting. But, after watching that collection flop after injuries, I decided to do an open PC with sub-PC's within. This also created my "hobby ADHD". Yes, this may sound like complicated collecting to some, the easiest way I can explain it is just take it as I collect it all. I have come to realize at this point in my collecting that I enjoy the hobby too much as a whole to put focus JUST onto ONE area of my collecting anymore.

Enough with the back story, now onto showing you my Andre Williams thus far.

These are some of my favorites. I like the Panini Choice Awards and the Prizm NYG parallel I got from my buddy Turk.

  

Jersey card. Not pictured is a Panini Playbook Jersey booklet. I couldn't find where I placed it.

Now onto my autos! Most I got from trades

 

 

 

These are stunning!

 

 

My favorite auto of the group which also happens to be my first Slide Show auto.

Hopefully this won't be the last of my additions to this PC. I look forward to adding more this summer and will keep you posted on this.